October 21, 2012

Seriously.....a new Peanuts movie?!

Seriously.....a new Peanuts movie?!
One of my fondest memories of my maternal Grandfather from when I was little was being allowed to sit with him in the living room and read from his stack of early Peanuts books.

My Grandmother was a very warm and loving lady who taught me to read.  My Grandfather was a bit more serious fellow who worked hard and spent his free time either attending to his hobbies (like raising orchids) or watching TV.  Spending some "quite time" with him was special to me and Peanuts were a big part of that experience.


I enjoyed the comic strips and even the cartoons over the years, as have most of my generation.  Peanuts has been around the globe, read in over 75 countries and with over 18,000 strips spanning 50 years, there is a lot of material out there.

It was common knowledge that Charles Schulz swore that nobody else would write Peanuts.  His last strip ran just hours after his death from Colon Cancer in 2000.  I think if you spend half a century building up a legacy you should get to decide what happens to your creative work.  I get that actually dictating how you will be remembered isn't possible, but deciding what happens to something you own is 100% up to you.

A while back I stopped at my comic book store and saw a huge poster for a "new" Peanuts comic book.  I had to stop and look.....was there some older, previously unreleased material?  Nope.....Mr. Shulz's son and grandson were working with some other artists to create whole new comics.

Seriously?!  I know it has been over a decade....what happened?  Did you burn through your inheritance already?  Did you decide to rape your father's (and grandfather's) legacy to be able to buy a few more cars or something?  I guess the comics weren't enough because now there is a movie in the works.

If these guys had some talent of their own they would create their own characters and build their own legacy.

You know what......I'm just a fan.  I don't completely get the whole creative process and maybe there is something I'm missing here.  My gut just tells me that somebody wants to try and grab that multi-million (reported to be between $35M +/- $5M) annual income that Charles Schulz had, maybe I'm wrong.

I'm a relative nobody here.....maybe the opinion of a actual cartoonist on the subject would hold more weight.

No comments: